Surround yourself with friends who help you say no

I once had a friend who invited me to something and I replied no thank you, I’ll pass. I didn’t apologize or explain why because I thought this friend, who was also on her self-healing journey, didn’t need those things. I was wrong and she seemed to get mad and demanded an explanation. ​​​​​​​​
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When we’re trying to learn to set boundaries by not apologizing so much or over explaining everything, it’s hard to put it into practice when the people around us don’t respond well. It can bring up the feelings we experienced growing up that were responsible these issues in the first place. Those feelings were what taught us to people please and manage other people’s feelings without attending to our own. ​​​​​​​​

Luckily, many of my friends today are people I feel comfortable saying no to and in turn, I feel the same way about them. The beauty of this kind of relationship is that I don’t feel bad asking them for something because I know they are able to say no if they need to and I cheer them on when they do this without apologizing or over explaining.​​​​​​​​
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Who you surround yourself with matters. They should be supporting you in your journey of learning to attend to your own needs, to set boundaries and to practice self-care. After all, we need each other to heal and grow, don’t we?​​​​​​​​

Photo by Anna Shvets